SEC Power Rankings after Week 1
We’re a week into the season, and already there are plenty of surprises. Going to guess that nobody would have picked our last place squad for last, but that is why they play the games — or maybe we should say why the games are 60 minutes long instead of 41.
There’s plenty of football to go, but after one week, based on what we’ve seen, here are your SEC power rankings.
14. Texas A&M (0-1, lost to UCLA 45-44)
The idea that A&M might lose the game wasn’t surprising. What was surprising was how a team went from absolutely rolling to dropping dead. It truly defied logic. In the middle of the third quarter, A&M would have been No. 3 or No. 4 on this poll. They had made a strong statement with their ground game (which ended up with 63 carries for 382 yards). And then they quit. The coaching staff, freshman QB Kellen Mond (3-for-17 for 27 yards passing), the secondary, everybody.
A&M could still plausibly win six or seven games. They can’t keep Kevin Sumlin’s job and they can’t forget this embarrassment, absent some crazy heroics.
13. Florida (0-1, lost to Michigan 33-17)
Again, the story here wasn’t the loss. Florida was playing without some big contributors and Michigan is a legitimate foe. But 192 total yards of offense and 27 carries for 11 yards on the ground? Six sacks allowed and five fumbles? The Florida defense of the past two years wasn’t there to bail out this sad-sack offense, which was like lead weight around UF’s neck. It could be a long season in Gainesville.
12. Missouri (1-0, beat Missouri State 72-43)
Sure, they put up over 800 yards and 70 points. But they allowed 492 total yards to a mediocre FCS team and their most points in an opener. Ever. Missouri State QB Peyton Huslig looked like Peyton Manning, and State also boasted a 100-yard rushing performance. Mizzou will have to put up 50 to be competitive in the SEC. They might do that a few times. But only a few.
11. Kentucky (1-0, beat Southern Mississippi 24-17)
The Kentucky team that ground out victories behind a power running attack disappeared, as they averaged 2.2 yards per carry at USM. The defense forced three turnovers, including a scoop and score, and saved the day. But how many times can the Kentucky defense do that in SEC play?
10. Ole Miss (1-0, beat South Alabama 47-27)
The Rebels had a little more life in them than might have been expected. Shea Patterson was all we expected (429 yards passing, 4 TDs), but the defense is very much a work in progress. South Alabama isn’t the Little Sisters of the Poor, but most SEC defenses wouldn’t surrender 374 yards and three touchdowns to them.
9. South Carolina (1-0, beat N.C. State 35-28)
This was a solid victory for the Gamecocks, and Deebo Samuel was outstanding, with two TD grabs and a kick return score. The down side? They averaged 1.5 yards per carry on the ground, and were outgained overall 504-246. Carolina won and was impressive—if you can look past that horrific yardage gap, which won’t lead to many more victories.
8. Tennessee (1-0, beat Georgia Tech 42-41)
Didn’t this look just like last year? The ghost of Tennessee’s mojo resurfaced. In a competitive East, they’ll be like Dracula — except they’ll probably get stabbed in the heart a lot quicker.
7. Arkansas (1-0, beat Florida A&M 49-7)
This ended up being a “they are who we thought they were” game — well, sort of. The Arkansas passing attack wasn’t very impressive, but the Razorbacks ground out 236 yards on the ground. The defense was impressive, holding A&M to under 200 yards and just nine first downs. But will it stick against meaningful competition? We shall see.
6. Mississippi State (1-0, beat Charleston Southern 49-0)
See above, but an even stronger performance. Passing for 274 yards and rushing for 281 makes the Bulldogs by far the most balanced SEC attack from Week 1. Meanwhile, they held CSU to just 33 total yards and a pair of first downs. Nobody learns much from these games, but the Bulldogs showed up focused.
5. Vanderbilt (1-0, beat Middle Tennessee 28-6)
This game had all the makings of a loss for Vandy, but nobody told the Commodores. Kyle Shurmur had a smooth 20-for-28, 296 yards, 3 TDs passing line, and Vandy’s defense dominated a capable MTSU attack. It was a shutout until the fourth quarter and most of Middle’s yardage came in mop-up time. Vandy’s offense must improve on 2.0 yards per carry on the ground, but this was a pleasant surprise.
4. Georgia (1-0, beat Appalachian State 31-10)
Almost by default, the Bulldogs were the most impressive team in the East. Even after QB Jacob Eason went out, the Bulldogs never let this one slide into doubt. The one issue is that UGA never really went pedal to the metal. Averaging 5.0 yards per carry is respectable, but Nick Chubb and Sony Michel would seem likely to outgain App. State by a much wider margin than they did. Jake Fromm was capable at QB, and now the Bulldogs can get ready for a tough opponent with a genuine QB controversy.
3. Auburn (1-0, beat Georgia Southern 41-7)
The Tigers did absolutely nothing to hurt themselves. Frankly, this felt like a game dedicated to being as vanilla as possible, and a 535-78 yardage advantage speaks to Auburn’s dominance. It is fair to wonder how the Tigers will fare against a legitimate passing game, and Jarrett Stidham will need to show more than he did in Week 1. But the Tigers looked like one of the three legitimate CFP contenders in the SEC.
2. LSU (1-0, beat BYU 27-0)
Much like Auburn, you never got a sense that LSU wanted to tip its hand, but this team looked great. Beating BYU by a yardage margin of 479-97 is worth noticing. The passing game for LSU wasn’t used much, but looked much better when called upon (15-for-18 passing for 183 yards). On the ground, the Tigers chewed up nearly 300 yards and held BYU to negative rushing yardage. There was some skepticism about the Orgeron Era coming in, but with a few more games like this, there won’t be much skepticism left.
1. Alabama (1-0, beat Florida State 24-7)
They knocked out a Heisman Trophy candidate, forced three turnovers and dominated the No. 3 team in college football. If the Alabama defense was ranked separately, it might be No. 1 on its own. The offense was a little rough. Damien Harris made big plays in the running game and on special teams, and Bama’s wealth of talent should improve its passing game. But this was a significant building block in another CFP run.
This is POWER RANKINGS! they can drop next week but for now Tennessee and USC should be 3rd and 4th… nether played a cup cake team and won.
You bet, your defense under Shoop just gave up over 650 yards, over 550 yards rushing, 250 yards to a freshman QB making his first start.
the Vols D would have look a lot better if they would had played Georgia Southern…
Not likely.
Very likely. Ga. Southern is no where close to the caliber of team that GT is……..
They would have looked a lot better if they could tackle and somehow stop getting blown off the LOS. Your DBs and LBs were out of position all night. Shoop had all summer to figure out this scheme. It’s going to be a long year Tennessee.
Neither Ga Southern or GT are very good. It was just bad defense.
Tennessee struggled with cupcakes last season. Fact is GT dominated Tennessee and if you’re giving up 600+ yards to a team that cant even throw the ball then there are SEC offenses (Alabama, Georgia, Missouri, South Carolina, LSU) that are going to absolutely destroy you.
I agree neither of the two teams are good but GT would trounce GA Southern. It’s a stupid comparison
Bamalicious – where do you get he was a freshman making his first start at QB??? He is a junior and is far from a stranger to that offense.
Power rankings. Versus meaningful opponents or not it’s about how they looked. And tenn defense looked terrible.
So no they shouldn’t be third or fourth because they didn’t pass the eye test.
Seems to me the VOLS beat the Insects when your Dawgs couldn’t :-)
He is a junior, but it was his first start. I didn’t say he was a stranger to the offense, said after a summer of studying the triple option it was still a mystery to Shoop.
With that logic from teams from last year you went to overtime with Apple Fanta state and Georgia blew them out…..
So you know …you sound stupid as hell lol
Took a screenshot of your comment though. Please don’t let the bulldogs beat both UT and Georgia tech this year. I’m not letting you get away with that comment.
Like Auburn vs Missouri in the 2013 sec championship. Tennessee knew what was coming and they couldn’t stop it. Wait till a team can throw too. Tennessee needs their defense to improve quickly or y’all will get shreded.
I completely agree – yes, worried about UT’s run defense but that was not a win over a “cupcake” at all!
LOL, you aren’t serious are you?
Everyone harping on the Ole Miss defense clearly did not watch the game. The backups played almost the entire second half and surrendered all of the second half point. I’m not saying they’re light years better than last season, but we won’t really know how good they are until Cal.
For christs sake man, y’all give us practically no chance all week, yet we pull out the W, NEVER TRAILED AT A SINGLE MOMENT, and all y’all want to do is talk about the freaking box score? I’m sorry our defense forced turnovers and there’s didn’t. I’m sorry our special teams unit was light years ahead of theirs. I’m sorry we stuffed the run and forced them to throw the ball OVER SIXTY TIMES. Our defense gave up 14 on the first two drives, the settled in and gave up only 14 throughout the final 45 minutes. None of that matters though to SDS. Neither does the only stat that matters, 35-28. Get your head out of your asses. It was a great game. Stop living and dying by box scores.
Lmao you think this make your team look better by what you said?
Joe – this is total crap. You ranked teams higher than UT who played CUPCAKES and stomped them into the ground? Not saying UT doesn’t have concerns, but UT survived and defeated GA Tech and their tough to defend defense. Same thing for south Carolina, you didn’t base this on who they actually played on the field. You get a “D” on this article, must do better.
Scuse me, offense not defense (sleepy from 2 OT Game last night sorry)
All you Tennessee fans can take heart that this weeks performance doesn’t matter because everybody knows rings can’t be earned until week two.
Well at least we didn’t let a D2 school with James Franco from Pineapple Express light us up. It will be nice when we get to Mizzou on the schedule we should be able to rest some people before we play LSU and still pick up the easy W.
I look forward to that game. Last years version was lots of fun to watch, outside of the outcome of course… An you may not have had a D2 light you up, but yes, you still got lit up none the less.
“Well at least we didn’t let a D2 school with James Franco from Pineapple Express light us up” I literally about rolled out of my chair laughing..thats funny stuff right there!!! And to be fair..Missouri State is a D-1 College, and Peyton Huslig is Juco National Championship transfer
It was a home game for Tennessee, the stadium was almost all orange. Maybe they can claim to have won the Mercedes Circle of Life Game?
It’s not very hard to stop GTech’s triple option if you have time to prepare for it. Tennessee had plenty of time.
They really think that’s it’s ok they gave up 600+ yards of total offense to a one dimensional team because they didn’t play a cupcake.
Lol
Who the hell said it is ok to give up as many yards as Tennessee did? Nobody. Tennessee won, and they won against a team yall can’t seem to figure out either.
BYU is not that good. Georgia Southern is not that good. Appalachian St is not that good. Charleston Southern not that good. Vanderbilt could be rated higher at least this week. Tennessee should be rated higher after beating a dirty players and deviously coached, athletic and hard scheme to match up to. South Carolina should be ranked higher even though NCState wasn’t very good. Kentucky won but should have had a little bigger margin to be convincing. Missouri should be ranked higher but when a team doesn’t play 4 quarters of defense it’s hard to debate even the lowest ranking. I will say this, SWMissouri State will contend for their conference this year under Steckel’s sophomores. No way Florida should be demoted from a division champ to 13th on one game alone…. but the news out of Gator-land is bad, bad, news. Yes aTm went to sleep, but yes they put up 44 points on the road, and they therefore put themselves in the position of having 34 ways to win that game late. Lot’s of coaches would love to be in that position and the Sumlin staff should get more credit and less know-it-all-ism
BYU is better than Mizzou.
I don’t know about that one. BYU and Mizzou both have bad defenses, but at least Mizzou can move the ball. BYU has struggled against and FCS team and against LSU.
I guess you missed the Missouri v BYU game
From two years ago? What does that even prove? Dumba$$
So you say team’s aren’t very good to include some FBS team’s but try to play up Missouri state? You’re so stupid and nothing more than a Missouri homer. Missouri state is not good. Missouri is not good……
You are going to have a heart attack buma-time
You’re a dumba$$.
Tennessee should be ahead of everyone who played a non-Power 5 team.
Power 5 Win > Cupcake Win
Please regain your senses.
Giving up over 600 yards of offense to a triple option team that you had all Summer to prepare for <<<
Had y’all not forced that late fumble Tennessee more than likely would have lost. Yes y’all found a way to win but that was an ugly win.
Please put Tennessee ahead of everyone else so their fans can stop crying about your made up ranking…. As they start losing the fan will slowly disappear and then you can rank them toward the bottom without any compaints…
Tennessee is fine right where they are. Frankly I would not have them that high. I really don’t know how good the tech team is or how good Tennessee is, after that game but giving up that many yards should be concerning to anyone with any football knowledge at all. We have a ton of work to do before we start beating our chest about where we are in the pecking order of best in the sec. I am surprised where vandy is though. I didn’t read all the article… so maybe he explained how vandy is rated higher than sc. it’s just one guys opinion so it matters exactly squat anyway.
Hell we could come out of the Florida game 3-0 and still not know what kind of team we have (relax gators I’m not predicting….yet:))
I figured SC would be higher considering the hype that was surrounding NC State to start the season
LOL
Life Champions!